Every Villain Was Once Just A Boy With A Bad Attitude
by Pachamama9
Summary: Serial Killer!Rabastan is jealous of Rodolphus' ability to make people fear him by hurting people, so he tries it himself. One-shot.


**A/N: Rabastan is jealous of his older brother's ability to make other people scared, so he starts doing it himself.**

 **Word Count = 1827**

 **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - Assignment #7 - Media Studies (Task 4) - Serial Killer!AU**

 **Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition - Round 11 - Beater 1 - American Psycho - broken mirror, pattern, torn dress, fatal, Bad Attitude**

 **Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter.**

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Rabastan Lestrange had always wanted to be just like his older brother, Rodolphus. Everyone loved Rodolphus. Rabastan was four years younger than Rodolphus, and Rodolphus always treated him like a baby instead of a thirteen-year-old, and Rabastan hated it.

Rabastan was a third year now, and Rodolphus was a seventh year. Rabastan admired how Rodolphus could enter a room and leave everyone quaking in fear. It was clear to the whole school that Rodolphus Lestrange lounged on a throne of power and terror. Rabastan wanted that kind of power. No, Rabastan _craved_ that kind of power.

Studying by the Black Lake, Rabastan looked up from his textbook to discover that Rodolphus was merely a few hundred feet away from him, shoving a young Hufflepuff to the ground. "What do you think you're doing, Mudblood?"

The boy was already crying, and Rabastan swelled with pride at the sight of the power of his older brother. "N-n-nothing, I d-didn't—"

Rabastan heard Rodolphus' signature cackle, followed by a few nasty hexes. Rodolphus had always been wonderful at hexes. The boy screamed, and Rabastan felt his face spread into a smile. Merlin, he loved his brother. He wanted to be just like him.

—-

On their first trip to Hogsmeade of the year, Rabastan found himself wandering the streets by himself, looking for something to do. He didn't have many friends; actually, he didn't have _any_ friends. The closest thing he had to a friend was his owl, Jon, and Jon pecked his hands to bits at every opportunity. No, Rabastan only had himself.

He followed a stray, grey cat down Hogsmeade's brick roads. The cat was limping, barely faster than him at walking pace, and he poked at it with a stick, relishing its whimpers as the sharp end pierced its flesh. Its fur was matted with blood now, and he grinned. Rodolphus would be so proud. When the cat tried to escape down an alley, he jumped before it, frightening the creature. Producing a sweet slicing hex, he whipped his wand Warmth spread through him as it screamed in agony, writhing on the bricks, blood cascading from its tiny body. If this is what Rodolphus felt like every time he hurt a younger student… Merlin. Rabastan cherished this feeling and performed another slicing hex on the dying creature, this time separating its legs from its body. He laughed softly at the cat's simultaneous pain and confusion.

A sharp gasp from behind him interrupted his activities. "Merlin's beard," a shocked voice exclaimed. "What have you done?"

Before he could stop to think, he turned around and performed the same spell on the woman who had caught him, cutting her chest into ribbons. Torn pieces of her dress floated to the bloodstained ground. She didn't even have time to scream before he turned her throat into a scarlet smile.

They found her body the a couple of weeks later, cleverly hidden inside of a tree trunk. Rabastan wasn't even worried about the fallout of the event, for he had cleansed himself of all association with the weak woman and found an alibi. Immediately following the discovery of the murder, their headmaster called the entire school to an assembly warning them about the dangers of being alone.

After the assembly, the Slytherin prefects called an emergency house meeting. The girl, a tall black girl named Helen with a mass of dark curls, told the Slytherins, "Raymond" —she gestured to the male prefect— "and I will be available if anyone needs to talk about what happened. I know this is a scary time for all of us, especially the younger ones, but we're here for you. Professor Dumbledore banned the next Hogsmeade trip to honor the woman, but we will have another trip after that. If you ever feel unsafe, whether on campus or in Hogsmeade, Raymond and I are here. You can ask us to escort you, okay? The last thing we want is for anyone to feel unsafe. We're going to pray that this was an isolated incident, but I won't lie to you." She took a deep breath. "They still haven't found who killed the woman. If anyone knows anything about her, please let Raymond or me know right away. Otherwise…" Although the other students only saw a brave prefect, Rabastan could smell the fear on her from across the room. "Otherwise, stay strong, Slytherin. We'll get through this."

Rabastan almost laughed out loud.

Two weeks later, they found Helen's broken body at the bottom of the stairs. They called it an accident, which infuriated him. Didn't they see the bruises on her arms?

Rabastan licked his lips. He would make them scared. He wanted the entire school to wet themselves in terror, in the same way the first and second years feared Rodolphus. Students and teachers alike would quake in their fright.

And who would suspect him, a quiet third year boy with a bad attitude?

Rabastan grinned. This was going to be fun.

Rabastan Lestrange had killed five people in six weeks and his mood had never been better. Each one had died in their own unique way: the bartender from the Hog's head drank a poisoned beer, the little old lady on the edge of Hogsmeade had drowned in her expensive, porcelain bathtub, the second year in Gryffindor had been strangled by his tie… And each death was as beautiful as the last. The flailing, the bleeding, the gasping… The ethereal struggle to live he found inside each human being he murdered… The flight from one world to the next was magnificent, like a gorgeous painting.

As he washed the blood from his hands from his ninth murder, he hummed softly, scrubbing the red from his fingernails. This girl had kicked and fought as she died, and now there was blood spotting his school uniform, but that could be easily blamed on a nosebleed—

"Rabastan?'

He stopped humming, turning to find his brother standing in the bathroom doorway. Rodolphus's face was puffy as though he'd been crying, his eyes swollen and wet. "What's wrong with you?" Rabastan asked. Crying was for the weak, and Rodolphus was anything but weak. Rabastan remembered how that Gryffindor Maggie Stein, the fourth year, had cried as she died, pale hands clutching her insides as though she could hold them inside of her body. She had sobbed relentlessly, even when Rabastan had placed her under a silencing spell, sniveling and wailing pathetically, snot and tears sliding down her face. She'd died that way, her face wet and pink and cowardly.

Rodolphus, his older brother, sniffled and tried to hide his tear-streaked face. "They found Leila's body today."

Rabastan didn't even flinch at the sound of his victim's name, calmly rinsing his hands in the sink. "Who?"

"My girlfriend," wailed Rodolphus, before starting to cry again. He covered his face with his hands, sobbing so hard that he hiccuped.

Rabastan rolled his eyes. This was ridiculous. "She was just a girl," he reminded his brother. "You'll get over her."

Rodolphus slid down with his back against the wall, sitting on the bathroom's tile floor. "No, no…" More tears dribbled down his cheeks. "I _loved_ her."

Incredulous, Rabastan spun to face his brother, stepping towards him. "You're seventeen! It's not love, it's just hormones!"

"She made me…" He hiccuped again, and Rabastan's fists tightened into white balls of fury. "She made me a better person."

"Better? _Better?_ " Rabastan's face began to twitch, and he stilled it with one bloodstained finger. "She was a Hufflepuff! She made you _weak_ and _pathetic_ like the rest of them!"

His brother's head snapped up in shock. "Wh-wha—"

"That Jackson girl was making you soft! You used to be respected, _feared_ , in the school! Everyone ran when they saw you! You were like the _King_ of Hogwarts, and with her you were just a… a… coward!"

Rodolphus' face drooped, as though he had actually stabbed him instead of simply telling the truth. "How could you say that?" he whispered. "She was just _murdered_."

Rabastan waved away his concerns. "Yeah, well, maybe she deserved it!" It was true; Leila Jackson deserved every cut in her stupid Hufflepuff body. She'd made a fatal move starting a romance with her brother, so she had to pay for it. Rabastan had planned to make it look like a suicide at first, slashing her wrists to pieces with his slicing hex, but eventually his anger took over. _You took my brother from me_ ," he'd snarled in her ear. _Now, I'm going to take your life from you_. The body was a bloody mess now, and he'd forgotten to clean all of his tracks because he was so upset, but it was worth it. At least that idiot girl's influence over Rodolphus was gone. "Now that she's out of the picture, you're free to be _you_ again. Go back to the way you were."

Rodolphus' mouth dropped open, and he truly saw Rabastan for the first time that night; he saw the blood still staining his fingernails, the red spots on his white shirt, the slight smirk at the corner of his mouth. "Merlin's balls," said his brother. "It was _you_. I knew there was a pattern… All people you hated."

Rabastan Lestrange grinned widely. "Aren't you proud, big brother?"

"All this time, it was _you_. "You killed those people in Hogsmeade?" The third year nodded, buzzing with exhilaration. "You killed that those Gryffindors? The second year and the fourth year? And Leila, too?" His face contorted with rage. "You _murderer_!"

He stood, fast as lightning, and shoved Rabastan against the bathroom sink, slamming his head against the mirror, his thick hands around his brother's neck. "She didn't do _anything_ to you! She was kind and beautiful and you killed her!" On the third blow, the mirror shattered, spilling its shards all over the bathroom floor. Rabastan's head exploded with pain, and he blasted Rodolphus with the first spell he thought of: the slicing hex. He hit his brother square in the chest, and his skin burst apart, blood spurting in every direction. Rodolphus hit the ground with a sickening _thunk_ , his skull cracking the tile. His front was a mess of blood, skin, and cloth, and he twitched on the floor, choking and writhing. His eyes were red, wild with grief and pain and rage, so Rabastan finished the job with a slice across his neck.

As Rodolphus died, drooling red from his mouth, Rabastan sat in the corner, watching. The exit from life was always so beautiful, and his brother's was particularly so. He fought so hard, kicking and flailing as blood cascaded from his torso.

When it was all over, Rabastan left Rodolphus' body where it lay and prepared his grieving face. He wondered if his parents would love him more now that he was the eldest.

He licked his lips and scoured the crowd of Hogwarts students for his next victim.

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 **A/N: Thanks for reading! Please tell me what you think.**

 **Other challenges used:**

 **Make Your Own Pizza - (word) expensive**

 **365 Prompts Challenge - #206 (A character discovers treachery of some sort)**

 **Gris-Gris Bag Station - Rabastan Lestrange**

 **Character Diversity Boot Camp - #40 (throne)**

 **If You Dare Challenge - #784 (Bloodlust)**

 **Fanfiction Writing Month: October[1827]**

 **Chocolate Frog Cards Club - Vincent Duc de Trefle-Picques (Bronze) - Write a gory horror.**

 **Are You Crazy Enough To Do It Challenge - #400((restriction) Marauder era story WITHOUT Marauders appearing)**


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